


Christmas aboard the SR1

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9420251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: Shepard never really liked Christmas and she’s prepared for this year's to be as bad as all the others. But, surprisingly, this year wasn’t quite so bad.





	

“Merry Christmas, Skipper!” 

The cheerful cry greeted her the very second she stepped out of her cabin Christmas morning. For fuck’s sake. She hadn’t even had coffee yet.

Against her better judgement, her eyes drifted to the mess hall table, where she was greeted by the sight of a disgustingly cheerful gunnery chief dressed in one of those god-awful Christmas jumpers. She’d even placed one of those poorly constructed tissue paper crowns on her head, just to really complete the look. 

“Merry Christmas, Ash,” she replied dutifully, staggering over to the coffee pot and pouring herself a cup. She debated for a moment, wondering whether it was worth burning her tongue in order to get the caffeine into her system as quickly as possible. Then she caught a glimpse of almost unbearable festive cheer reflected in her mug. She took a mouth-searing gulp. 

“So any plans for the big day?” Shepard asked, taking a seat opposite the gunnery chief. She noticed, with a sense of impending dread, that the Christmas jumper was complete with lights and the obligatory awful pun (which in this case was ‘nice baubles’). With her luck it probably even played some annoying little tune when you pressed something.

She probably shouldn’t be such a humbug. 

Not that she was really a humbug! It was just… Christmas didn’t really mean anything to her. Not now, not really. It wasn’t like she had a family to go to or a home to be at. If she wasn’t on duty she usually just hung around the bar in Alliance Command. Some years she’d get lucky and some of her friends would be around too, other years she wasn’t so lucky. Generally, she tried to be on duty if she could be. Christmas on duty was roughly a thousand times better than Christmas not on duty.

Except this year, apparently.

She really shouldn’t be such a humbug.

“The usual Christmas on duty plan,” Ash answered her. “Call mom. Miss her home cooking while I choke down the tasteless dry turkey that only Alliance HQ can provide. Find a good bar on the Citadel… Hey, you wanna come? Drinks are on Joker!”

“On Joker?” Shepard questioned with all due suspicion. 

Ash nodded, a grin spreading across her face. “Yup. He lost a bet. Told me he could rig the Normandy’s enviro systems enough to make it snow. Well, I woke up this morning and no snow. So, he loses!”

She wisely decided not to ask any follow up questions about the snow. It clearly hadn’t happened, and looking into the whys and hows would probably only lead to either a headache or more paperwork. Or both. Probably both. 

“Well, I’m not one to pass up a free drink on Christmas. Or ever. Count me in.” Shepard raised her coffee mug in a ‘cheers’ motion and forced her smile a little wider. 

Ash grinned. “Excellent. LT said he’d come along too, so…” 

Before she could finish her sentence or Shepard could really process what she’d said, the man himself walked into the room, slightly staggering under the bulk of the large box he was carrying. 

“It’s here,” he announced happily, dumping the box onto the table with a very solid sounding thud. 

“What’s here?” Ash asked.

“Care package from my mom.” Kaidan’s eyes were glittering as he tore open the flaps and immediately attempted to insert nearly half his torso into the box. “Should be here somewhere…” His muttering was half drowned out by the sound of various items being shuffled about. “Aha!” He straightened triumphantly, a clear plastic bag clutched in his hand. 

“Cookies?” Shepard was sceptical. Who got that excited about cookies?

“Hey. These are my mom’s Christmas cookies.” The lift at the corner of his mouth belying his serious tone. “And they’re amazing.” He cracked the bag open just a little, pressing it to his face to inhale their scent. “Smells like Christmas.” He reached in, seized a tree shaped cookie and stuffed almost the entire thing into his mouth. “Tastes like it too. You want one, Chief? Commander?” 

When they’d both taken a cookie, he dropped the rest of the bag onto the table and disappeared back into the box. She was glad he had. She wasn’t sure she could take his smugness as she bit into the cookie and was immediately forced to concede that it was one of the best things she’d ever tasted. 

“Okay we have… crackers.” Kaidan temporarily rose from the box in order to drop a mountain of brightly coloured crackers onto the mess table. “Turkey, ham and stuffing…” Three more clear plastic bags filled to the brim with food landed on the table. “Chocolates, mince pies, candy canes…” 

Ash and Shepard stared at each other in shock as the table was gradually filled up with what Mrs Alenko considered the essentials of Christmas. 

“Tinsel… I told her not to pack that this year. She never listens. Party poppers…” 

Ash made a grab for the poppers as soon as they landed. Seconds later, Shepard was covered in sparkly plastic ribbon and thoroughly un-amused. 

“Whiskey….” Kaidan continued “and ah, Canadian Lager. Good.”

“You know that’s not allowed in theatre, Lieutenant,” Shepard regretfully reminded him. She didn’t enjoy putting the kibosh on his Christmas cheer but rules were rules. (As she so often had to remind herself around him.)

“Actually, Commander, regulation states that officers can consume alcohol in theatre on Christmas Day. Providing it doesn’t affect their duties the following day. And the entire supply is consumed on December 25th.” Kaidan reeled off the paragraph like he’d been practising it.

“Challenge accepted.” Ash shrugged and cracked open a can. 

However, Shepard noticed Kaidan was hesitating, waiting for her approval. She had no idea why, because hell, if he said that it was regulation she was willing to bet that it was regulation. After all, he probably knew them a whole lot better than she did. 

Smiling, she gestured for him to carry on. He dove back into the box, with what appeared to be his customary Christmas enthusiasm. Seconds later he emerged once more, holding a large blue package. 

“The annual Christmas jumper,” he explained, tearing away the plastic covering currently protecting the knitwear. He unfurled the jumper, grinned and began pulling it over his head. Shepard only just managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. 

Once he’d put it on though, she had to admit that clearly some Christmas jumpers weren’t horrific. In contrast to Ash’s twinkly, gaudy, overly bright monstrosity, his was a nice dark blue and the only decoration was two lines of white snowflakes running across the broadest part of his chest.

He looked good. Really good. Blue, it seemed, was most definitely his colour. 

“Nice,” Ash complimented him. (Shepard didn’t exactly trust herself to speak.) “We should get one for Shepard too, complete the trio.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Shepard drawled, her brain shifting from vague daydreams about Alenko in dress blues to sarcasm in the blink of an eye. 

Ash’s face lit up, as per usual. The more sarcastic she was, the more determined Ash became. 

“C’mon Commander,” she wheedled. “You should join in the fun. Right, LT?” 

“I’m not getting involved,” Kaidan wisely replied, diving back into the box before Ash could cajole him further. When he resurfaced he was holding an ordinary looking OSD. “A recording of the Canucks game,” he clarified. “Which I will definitely be watching later and err… this… This is for you, Commander.” A faint blush coloured his cheeks.

“For me?” She was genuinely confused as she reached out and took the small brown box he was offering to her. “Why has your mom sent something for me?” 

To her eternal joy the red tinge on his cheeks deepened. “I… er… I may have mentioned to her that you… er… didn’t have a family and, um… you said you’d never had a birthday present, so I guess she just….” He trailed off, his cheeks now a deep crimson. Awkwardly, he rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact as much as possible.

She tried to be impassive, desperately wanting to try and hit his maximum embarrassment threshold, but it was hard to do when she was so incredibly touched by the gesture. She couldn’t help but smile at him. Not even a half smile, or her trademark smirk, but a real full blown smile. It took him a few moments to notice, but when he did he relaxed a little and then, he smiled back. 

God, she loved his smile. Like her, he didn’t often smile fully. Usually it was the little half smile that she’d first seen in the med bay after Eden Prime all those months ago. When he did smile though, it transformed his face. He seemed younger, more carefree. When he smiled, it reached all the way up into his eyes, making them shine with warmth. 

“I’m gonna see if the square stockings are here,” Ash interrupted, forcing Shepard to tear her eyes away from his, which, all things considered, was probably a bloody good thing. Staring at each other like that was a good way to end up in a frat regs related courts martial. 

As Ash dashed off, he slid into the seat opposite her and nodded at the box in her hand. “Open it?” he said, a flicker of something that could be called nerves crossing his expression.

She paused for a moment, wondering what she’d find. She searched his face for clues before finally giving up and opening the box. When she tipped it up a flurry of packing material fell out and something hard landed in her palm. 

It was a snow globe.

But instead of snow it had tiny silver stars.

And instead of the traditional Christmas village scene there was her Normandy. 

“Do you like it?” he asked softly. Suddenly she became aware of his intense stare behind the snow globe that was legitimately taking up most of her vision and attention. She swallowed around the unexpected lump in her throat and nodded, unable to speak just yet.

“How did your mom get a model of the Normandy?” she asked after a moment, immediately wincing as she realised what an awfully stupid thing that was to say. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful, I am, it’s just… the design is classified so… how?” 

The more familiar half smile appeared on his face. 

“Dad must have pulled a few strings with his old Alliance contacts.” 

Kaidan shrugged it off but she wasn’t fooled. She doubted that an ex-marine would have had the pull to commission a model of a top secret, top of the range, frontline warship. No. if anyone had done this, it had to have been him. 

“Thank you.” she said trying to convey her sincere gratitude through her tone alone. A touch of something like panic seemed to rise in his eyes as he clearly worried she’d figured him out, so she added, “I mean, thank your mom for me.” 

“I will,” he said as his hand twitched in the way it did sometimes. She liked to think that the gesture was the physical manifestation of him stifling the impulse to reach out to her. It probably wasn’t, but since she often had difficulty with the same thing, she liked to think it was.

Realising they were staring at each other again, she tucked the snow globe safely into the pocket of her BDUs and did the only thing she could think of to diffuse the tension between them. She picked up the nearest thing to her, braced her elbow on the table and extended her hand towards him.

“Pull my cracker?” she said, plastering her most serious expression across her face. He shot her the look - the half amused half weary look he shot her whenever she was deflecting emotion with dirty jokes. 

When Ash returned she was still chucking at the horrendously bad joke that had come from the cracker and he was obediently pulling the paper hat onto his head. 

“They’re here,” she declared, tossing a familiar grey box complete with a sad sparkly red Santa on it in front of each of them. “I’ve had Serviceman Burns hand out to the crew, but I’ve got ours.” 

“Best thing about Christmas on tour,” Shepard noted. “A box of free stuff.” 

“Yeah,” Ash said dropping into the seat beside her. “Doesn’t beat Christmas at home though. Right now my sisters will be arguing over whose present mom should open first while the turkey burns.”

“Yeah,” Alenko breathed, a faintly dreamy look crossing his features. “My mom always cooks enough to feed the five thousand; triple bird roast, honey glazed ham, roast potatoes home grown on the farm, pigs in blankets, stuffing rolls, homemade cranberry sauce….”

“Shut up, you’re making me jealous,” Ash said, shoving him and stopping his list of mouth-watering food. “My mom’s a terrible cook.”

“Yeah?” Kaidan sounded surprised that anyone’s mom could be a bad cook.

“Oh yeah.” A dreamy look now crossed her own face. “Dad was the real chef. The first year he was on tour for Christmas? Sarah cried. So mom made it a game, how much awful food could we eat? And whoever ate the most got the biggest slice of store-bought dessert. Now it’s tradition.” 

Kaidan nodded understandingly. “Traditionally, we men-folk are banned from the kitchen until after dinner. Then we wash up before the game.”

“Medieval much?” 

“Hey, you try arguing with my mother on Christmas,” Kaidan shot back. “I guarantee you won’t win.”

“Hey, I’m all for a traditional Christmas fight,” Ash replied, grinning from ear to ear. 

“What about you, Commander?” Kaidan asked turning to her before Ash got too ‘into’ the idea of a Christmas punch-up. “Any Christmas traditions from… your parents?” His voice trailed off in the way that people always did when they suddenly remembered, mid-sentence, that her parents were dead. 

“You know, it’s funny, I don’t really remember.” 

She was lying. She did remember the old Christmas decorations, antique ones that were falling to bits and had no glitter left, but still went on the tree. She remembered the wooden nativity set, hand carved by her uncle before she was even born. She remembered… She remembered a lot of things, but she wasn’t about to bring down her crew with memories of her dead parents. 

“But there was this one time my squad and I were in a bar…”

She could get used to this, she decided, hours later. A Christmas that was a mishmash of all their traditions. It had started with the terrible vacuum-packed Alliance issue Christmas dinner. That had taken care of Ash’s tradition of terrible food. A dessert of Momma-Alenko’s Christmas cookies while watching the game had taken care of Kaidan’s Christmas. And now the bar they were currently sat in crossed off Shepard’s one and only remaining tradition of brightly coloured drinks and bad lighting.

Most of the crew had joined them by this point. All of them wearing the poorly constructed paper cracker hats since Joker had somehow managed to convince everyone of their absolute necessity. Hilariously while most of them had to stop and replace their hat from time to time, Garrus’ fringe kept his hat on better than anyone else’s, and she doubted she’d forget the image of the tiny yellow paper crown perched on top of Wrex’s massive head anytime soon. 

“Okay,” Kaidan announced as he returned to their table from the bar. “This is supposedly called a ‘Christmas Wish’.” He slid one of the tall bright red drinks he was carrying in front of Shepard and then paused, glancing at the empty seat that Ash had just vacated. “Where’s Ash?” 

Shepard pointed to the dance floor where Ash, Tali and Liara were dancing up a storm. Shepard had decided against joining them… for reasons. 

“You don’t feel like dancing, Commander?” Kaidan asked, that unmistakable glint in his eye telling her explicitly that he was teasing her. 

“Not unless you do, Lieutenant,” she shot back just as teasingly. 

He directed that warm little half smile back before grabbing his drink and sliding into the seat next to her, just a fraction of a fraction closer than he should have. 

“So what makes this a Christmas wish then?” Determined, she turned away from his gaze and took a deliberate sip of her drink because damn he was close, and his lips were close, and despite this oh so careful line they’d drawn between them it was all she could do not to kiss him right now. 

He took a sip from his own drink. “I think it’s mostly due to the fact that it’s red.”

“Ahh,” she replied knowingly. “That’ll be it.” 

Kaidan nodded, relaxed, his gaze slipping from her toward their crew dancing. “There’s nothing like Christmas time.”

Underneath the table, his warm calloused fingers wrapped themselves around hers. She wasn’t sure whether it was the drink, or the fact it was Christmas, or the conversation they’d had last week about shore leave, but she was glad he was bold enough to do it. As she closed her fingers around his in response, she was forced to agree. 

There was nothing quite like Christmas time with friends…

With him.


End file.
